It was the eve of my 30th birthday: a painfully gorgeous afternoon in the south-east of lutruwita/Tasmania.
A handful of friends and I were basking on the sunlit balcony of a 205-year-old pub after emerging from a remote and chilly hiking hut, which we had spent the past few nights in.
“What would you like to ingest on your final night of your twenties?” came the chorus.
Being partial to a jazzy cig on occasion, my answer came without hesitation.
“Let’s get ourselves some bud.”
And so, our quest for a crumb of the devil’s lettuce in a tiny town on the Derwent River began.
The friend in the most committed relationship leapt at the chance to download Tinder, and within minutes, we had a fake profile for 41-year-old Mary – last name Jane. For a picture, we settled on something subtle, yet screamingly obvious: Oscar the Grouch, the big nug of weed that resides in a bin.
“Passing through town; just looking for bud…” read our bio.
Before long, pick-up lines were rolling in from more than a dozen suitors, which we found equal parts hilarious and devastating, given the clear catfishing nature of our profile.
“Hey Mary. How’s your night?”
When we restated our singular mission, some of our matches seemed devastated.
“Oh. Is that all? Do you maybe wanna grab a drink or something?”
Like, on Sesame Street?
Eventually, we landed on 39-year-old Paul. He reminisced on his glory days living in Brisbane and asked if we were, at least, women. When we confirmed as much, he agreed to meet and give us two weed cookies free of charge.
“I’m in a Silver Landcruiser. I’ll meet you in the Woolies carpark.”
Dressed like members of the same tragic 70s revival band (yes, we live in the Northern Rivers), we trekked to the supermarket, exceptionally pleased with our wanton efficiency. A silver Landcruiser screeched past recklessly, injecting fear into our beating hearts, but we quickly realised that everyone in this town drag raced to get from A to B, and owning a car of that description was as common as driving a Rangey around Byron’s CBD.
At Woolies, we played it casual, entering the store to buy some shake’n’bake pancake mix. As we exited, our eyes widened in horror as we saw the familiar vehicle of the boys in blue parked out the front.
Ridiculously overdressed, as per usual, the cops entered the store just as Paul pulled in. Paul’s face contorted in abject terror at the scene in front of him, and he promptly did a blocky and tore away.
I ran after him, waving as I frantically typed out a Tinder message.
“Hey! We saw the cops too! We’re actually four females, not police!”
I gave him my number as extra proof.
“Meet you in the Macca’s carpark instead?”
We sprinted across the road, making it to McDonald’s just as the police did. Evidently, in this small town on a Tuesday night, there are two criminal hotbeds of crime for police to patrol.
Needless to say, Paul’s rattly 4WD sped off into the night, and we were left cookieless. My phone vibrated with a notification – it was from Tinder: Your account has been deleted for violating community standards.
Giggling disappointedly, and feeling decidedly bad for Paul, we trekked back to the caravan park we were staying in and went to bed.
Cover by Ramille Soares